Conventional photographic web roll wrapping operations employ a centrifugal feeder that delivers spools of web, in single file, to a wrapper via a moving conveyance. Once at the wrapper station, the spools are individually wrapped with a suitable packaging material, such as the type described and illustrated in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 882,387, filed on May 13, 1992. Then the wrapper is sealed to produce a package having the generally cylindrical appearance shown in FIG. 1 of the present application. Protection of the roll of photosensitive film against light, dirt and moisture penetration is provided by the disclosed packaging. Prior to entering the wrapper station, the pitch and the position of each transported spool on the moving conveyance are predetermined so as to facilitate handling and transport of the wrapped rolls downstream of the wrapper. A typical wrapping operation for photosensitive web rolls may include first providing a continuous web of suitable overwrap material, nominally a light and moisture impervious material, and then forming with the overwrap material a tubular shaped wrap around each spool. As the spools progress through the wrapper, a longitudinal seal 2 (FIG. 1) is made in a top portion of the tubular wrap via a pair of heated finwheels. The resultant enclosed spools are then conveyed to a "tucking device" which provides the overwrap "tucks" on either side of the spool. Thereafter, the tubular wraps, each having a longitudinal seal, are then further formed by a pair of forming wheels and the spools begin to take their final configuration. After forming, the tubular wraps enclosing each of the spools are then conveyed to a "sealing station" which provides opposing cross sealed portions thereby forming a continuous stream of joined packaged film rolls. The stream of packaged film rolls is then conveyed through a rotary cutting station which cuts the packaged rolls into individual or single packaged film spools.
In certain instances, the wrapper operation or some other sub-system will malfunction causing packaged spools at certain locations along the conveyance to be exposed to deleterious conditions, such as excessive temperatures or pressures, resulting in rejectable product. The operator then must manually remove suspected affected products from the wrapper stream and sort them accordingly. For instance, if a wrapper malfunction arises, packaged spools in the conveyance stream may be exposed to exceedingly high temperatures that could compromise the integrity of the overwrapped photosensitive film product. Such affected photosensitive film spools are therefore transported to predetermined reject or rework stations positioned downstream of the cutting operation. According to one known practice, packaged spools exiting the cutting station are transported to one of several predetermined stations including an acceptable product station, a reject station or a rework station each positioned downstream of the cutting station.
There is no known practice for precisely picking up and sorting packaged photosensitive film spools by acceptability or rejectability, and selectively delivering the objects automatically to predetermined stations, such as those described above.
Accordingly, there persists a need for an apparatus and method for precisely picking up objects and sorting them by acceptability and rejectability, and then selectively releasing the objects to one of several predetermined stations prior to shipping that is simple to operate, easy to manufacture, capable of high speeds, and is reliable.